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Show Plant Breaking Up an Island. Strength is not a thing usually connected con-nected with maidenhair fern, yet if Its roots have not sufficient room they break the pot in which the plant grows. Blades of grass will force the curbstones between which they spring up out of their place, and in a single night a crop of small mushrooms mush-rooms have lifted a large stone. Indeed, In-deed, plants have been known to break- the hardest rocks. The island of Aldabra, to the northwest north-west of Madagascar, is becoming smaller and smaller through the action ac-tion of the mangroves that grow along the foot of the cliffs. They eat their way into the rock in all directions, and into the gaps thus formed the waves force their way. In time they will probably reduce the Island to pieces. |